Chapter 1

Bob was a 35 year old father of one, a happily married, self-employed IT expert who lived with his wife and daughter. The marriage and their daughter were the same age, at fourteen years. They had talked about having another child, but the timing had never been quite right. They were poor, at first, until Bob got enough experience (and clients) to begin making good money. Meanwhile, his wife, Julie, had gotten her degree in English Literature and began writing children’s books. She actually began making pretty good money before Bob did and now they were finally financially secure.

Life throws us curves, though, and Bob was in for several of them. It’s hard to say what started the thing that made his life veer in a totally different direction. Part of it might have been that he got a new client who wanted a website built very quickly, so that he could start selling his products online. Another part of it might have been that Julie’s publisher scheduled a two week book tour for her, covering six cities. She was to appear in libraries and book stores and read sections of her books to children and their parents.

The last thing had been percolating for a while, though Bob didn’t know it. His daughter, Beth, was at that age where her body was insisting on being adult, while her life experience continued to be that of a child. Granted, she’d seen plenty of adult things. The world was full of those. Marketing and advertising tries very hard to appeal to girls of her age to get them to buy things that were common in the adult world. Makeup is an example. Risqué clothing is another.

The straw that brought the camel to its knees happened innocently enough, in the back yard of the house in the suburbs of the town where they lived. It was a nice house, nicer than they needed, but they had lived hand-to-mouth while Beth was young, so when they could afford it, they went all the way. It was a ranch style house on four acres, with a pool in the back and woods beyond that. They had neighbors, but those were big lots, too, so people were far apart and the neighborhood was quiet.

Though the back yard wasn’t visible from the street and though the neighbors’ windows were seventy-five yards away, Julie wanted a tall, tight privacy fence around the pool. Bob had built it himself and it made the pool area perfectly private from any eyes save those from above. Julie wasn’t worried about people in planes, and she didn’t even think of drones.

As soon as it was finished, Julie christened the pool after Beth went to bed by walking out of the house gloriously naked and swimming that way. Bob had joined her and, as their love life was still quite healthy, they made love both in and beside the pool.

Neither of them thought about the possibility that their young daughter might not go to sleep when she was supposed to, or that her room, which had its own patio door that let out onto the deck of the pool, might be the perfect viewing venue for a girl who might be curious about what Mommy and Daddy did out there in the dark.

Bob had the website for his new client built, and now he was testing it. It had to be perfect, since his reputation was what got him new clients. It wasn’t difficult work; just very tedious. He just had to find every bug and then fix it. It was Friday and he was supposed to present the product to his client on Monday morning, at which point the site would go live.

He had kissed Julie goodbye that morning when a cab picked her up to take her to the airport. Other than the kiss and a heartfelt, “I love you,” the only thing she’d said was, “Take care of Beth. She needs you.” He took that to mean that he needed to spend a little more time with his daughter, and not to closet himself in his office to the point that she was completely unsupervised.

Beth promptly said she was going to her friend Sarah’s house, because Sarah’s dad was going to take them to the mall. She asked for fifty dollars. Her father pointed out that she got an allowance already, and she pointed out that she needed a new bathing suit, which was clothing, which parents are supposed to provide. Allowance money was above and beyond that. He grinned and gave her the credit card he kept for her use. She didn’t get to hang onto it, but when she had permission, she could use it. That way he could easily keep track of what she bought and how much she spent.

He wasn’t worried. Beth was a good kid and never got in trouble.

He worked all day and took a break around 5:30 to get something to eat and drink a beer. He was sitting on a chaise lounge when he heard the patio door of Beth’s room open and she walked out to announce her return. As she approached, Bob’s mind went on alert. Her hips were swaying. She looked like a lithe tigress, in her faded and torn jeans shorts and the crop top that exposed her belly almost to the bottom of her breasts.

“Please tell me you didn’t go to the mall dressed like that,” he said.

She laughed.

“You’re so silly. I only wear this at home.” She bent down to peer at the bottle in his hand. “Can I have a sip of your beer, Daddy?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t like it,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“Dads know everything,” he said with a grin. “Promise not to tell your mother if I let you taste it?”

“I promise!” she said, eagerly.

He handed her the bottle and watched as she took a swig. As expected, she made a face and thrust the bottle back at him.

“Why do you like that?” she gasped.

“It’s an acquired taste,” he said. “I warned you, did I not? Maybe one of these days you’ll learn to listen to what I say.”

“I listen to what you say,” she said, truculently. “I have to go get some orange juice or something to get the taste of that out of my mouth. Have you had supper yet?”

“No. I was in the zone,” he said.

“I’ll fix something,” she said. “Can you stay out of the zone long enough to eat something?”

“I’m pretty much finished,” he said. “I’m going to relax for the rest of the evening and look at it again tomorrow.”

“Finish your nasty beer. Mac and cheese?”

Macaroni and cheese was the first thing she’d learned to make and was still her favorite.

“Sure,” he said.

As she walked away, again he noticed the rise and fall of her hips. As she entered the patio door he blinked. The shorts she was wearing were threadbare and had holes in them. There for a second he thought he’d seen bare skin through one of those holes. He smiled. Julie went commando all the time. But there was no way his little girl would run around the house sans panties.

He finished his beer and then laid back on the chaise lounge and went over his code in his mind one more time.

At supper Bob sat and stared at his daughter. He felt like he hadn’t seen her, or at least really looked at her, for a long time. There was no baby fat on her face anymore. She was tall and willowy, like her mother and, like Julie, she had proud, thrusting breasts under that crop top she was wearing. At one point he thought he could see the imprint of nipples through the shirt. He looked away, feeling suddenly guilty. When had his little girl grown up like that?

She chattered during supper and he sat, feeling like he was off balance, somehow. As she gathered up the dishes and bent to put them in the dishwasher, it became undeniable that she was not wearing any panties under the shorts. He admonished himself and thought, ‘She could have on a thong. That would make it look like she was pantiless.’ Then the idea that his fourteen-year-old daughter might wear something like thong panties made him feel even more like he’d stepped into an alternate universe, somehow.

“I’m going to bed early,” she announced. “All that walking at the mall tired me out.”

“Did you find a new bathing suit?”

“Yeah,” she said, carelessly. “I’ll show it to you tomorrow, maybe.”

“Okay. Night, night.”

She came and, with athletic ease, swung one long leg over his lap and plopped down on his thighs. She rested her forearms on his shoulders.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said. Then she bestowed a kiss on his lips. It was a very brief, very daughterly kiss, but at the same time her firm teen breasts pressed into his chest for a heartbeat, before she leaned back, dismounted him, and wandered toward her room.

Bob was semi horrified to feel blood rushing into his penis as he watched her leave.

Bob’s faint feeling of unease lingered. He decided he was just missing Julie and that was why his body had reacted to another (very similar) woman. It was dusk out, earlier than he and Julie usually went skinny-dipping, but Beth was in bed, so he decided to take a dip in the pool to clear his mind. He thought about putting on a suit, but decided Beth was surely asleep by now. He got a towel and, naked, walked out onto the patio. The heat of the day was fading, and he stretched, looking forward to the water, which he knew had absorbed heat in the sun.

He hadn’t really looked at the pool, yet, and as he got to the deck, the sudden movement in the middle of the water was a surprise to him. Something was in his pool! He peered, thinking it must be a dog that had somehow gotten into the back yard. The body neared him and a dark head broke the surface.

He found himself staring into the eyes of his daughter. Even in the dim light he could see her eyes widen as the whites showed plainly.

“Daddy!” she squeaked.

She stood in the shallow water and his own eyes widened as he saw her pale breasts come into view. Then, almost immediately, she sank back down in the water, covering her nakedness.

“I didn’t think you’d come to the pool with Mom gone,” gasped Beth.

Bob realized he was naked, and that his penis, having stayed half hard all evening, was displayed to his little girl. He hastily covered his groin with the towel.

“I thought I’d cool off,” he said, his voice dry. “I thought you were in bed.”

“I thought I’d cool off, too,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep and I was hot so I decided to come out and take a swim like you and Mom do sometimes,” she said.

“I didn’t know you knew about that,” he said.

“My door looks right out here,” she said. “And sometimes you guys make noises.”

Bob thought about what kind of noises Beth might have heard. Julie had loud orgasms, sometimes.

“Um ... why are you naked, Beth?” he asked. He wanted to slap himself. Why had he asked that?

“I know you and Mom swim like that, and I thought I’d like to see what it felt like,” she said. “I understand why you do it. It feels really good.”

“Well, I’ll give you some privacy, then,” said Bob. He turned but had only gone a couple of steps before Beth’s voice stopped him.

“Wait! Daddy! You don’t have to leave. You can swim, too.”

He turned back.

“I didn’t think you’d be comfortable,” he said.

“Well, I’m not un-comfortable,” she said. “I mean it’s almost dark and I can barely see you. If you want to swim then you should be able to. It’s your pool, after all.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. All he could think about was the fact that she was naked. He felt more blood flood into his penis and realized that, dark though it might be, if he lost that towel his daughter would see him with an erection. “Okay, turn around and I’ll get in.”

The lightness of her face was replaced by the darkness of her wet hair as she turned. He went to the steps and, as he felt the warm water on his ankles and calves, tossed the towel toward the chaise lounge he’d been lying on earlier. With a rush, he fell into the water, relieved that his traitorous penis was now invisible to his innocent daughter.

He began doing laps, assuming Beth would stay where she was. She didn’t, though, and began doing laps, too. The pool was only 25 feet long, so they both had to turn and go the other way frequently. At one point, they ran into each other in what happened to be the deeper end of the pool. In an unplanned and spontaneous result, they ended up in each other’s arms. Bob’s instinct was to support her and, while she obeyed her own instinct to wrap her arms and legs around him, he began to tread water, keeping them both afloat.

“Sorry,” she sputtered. “I didn’t see you.”

“No harm done,” he said, as he felt her full breasts rub across the hair on his chest. He felt other hair tickle him, right around where his belly button was, and realized it must be her fluffy pubic hair. His penis had softened as he swam, but now it reared up again, ready to play.

Every time he kicked his legs, and fanned the water with his arms, her breasts rubbed his chest and her little pubic patch rubbed against his stomach. He was now fully erect so he slowly steered them toward the shallow end, so he could stand and tell her she could let go. All she did was stare into his eyes as they moved. Neither had anything to say.

“You can let go, now,” he said, as his toes touched the bottom of the pool.

He felt her arms relax and she slid downward. In an instant he knew what was going to happen, but he couldn’t push her away fast enough to avoid it. Her fluffy pubes impacted the base of his cock and the reduced weight of her body bent his penis down as her adolescent vulva scraped across the top of his stiff prick.